His Hired Bride

“I don’t mean to,” she said and pulled the boot off. “You’ve got to admit though, that our business deal never involved things like this before.” She set the boot down then went for the other one.

“I thought you said you wouldn’t take pay,” he went on in the same grumpy, aggrieved tone. “Does that mean there’s only business between us with no friendship or neighborliness at all?”

Eadie pulled off the second boot. “Of course there’s more than business between us,” she said as she picked up the other boot and set them both out of the way. “I apologize for making you think otherwise. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t care about you, Hoyt.”

“That’s a relief,” he said, though he sounded anything but relieved. “But it’s hard to take it personally when you care about everybody.”

There was a strong hint of self-pity and maybe frustration in the way he’d said that, and Eadie made a desperate try to ignore it. After all, Hoyt wasn’t quite himself, and who knew how the painkiller was affecting him?

“How do you really feel about me, Eadie?” he asked quietly, and everything inside her went on full alert. “I haven’t exactly been easy to get along with lately.”

The admission got her by the heart. It was an acknowledgment that he’d been difficult. And the way he’d said it was also an admission of regret. But she didn’t dare answer the question that preceded it. Not with the truth.

Eadie might have been able to find some way to overlook his question and focus only on the second part of what he’d said about not being easy to get along with. She was ready to say something that might lighten things up and get a grudging smile out of him.

The words to do just that were on the tip of her tongue, but then his gaze lifted to hers, and the solemn look she read there not only got her by the heart but squeezed hard. The subject neither of them had spoken about or hinted at for five years was suddenly between them, and Eadie felt compelled to break a little of that years-long silence. The time seemed right, and perhaps Hoyt did need to hear this from her.

“Even if you’re never easy to get along with again, Hoyt,” she began softly, “there was a time in my life when you did something for me I’ll never forget. No, I don’t like the way you’ve been lately, but I know who you really are deep down. That’s the man I’m here for tonight. I might do just about anything for that man.”

Eadie felt her heart leap into a panic over the starkly candid confession. She was certain to regret it, but the somberness about Hoyt tonight had brought out the fool in her. Then again, her feelings for Hoyt had steeped in secret for so many years that it wasn’t much of a surprise she’d let a little of them come out just now. Tonight was something completely new between them, and it was affecting her in dangerous ways.

If revealing even that tiny bit of her feelings to Hoyt made him order her out of his life and never show her face again, it might be a mercy. Five years was a long time, a pathetically long time.

The seconds ticked past as they stared at each other. Eadie couldn’t maintain the contact, so she glanced away. “If you’ll stand up, I’ll turn down the covers for you. Then I’ll get out of here so you can get ready for bed.” She made herself look at him again. “You do have everything you need for the night, right?”

“I’ll make do.”

His dark gaze was pressing deeper and deeper into hers, so she glanced away to reach for the top of the bedspread. As she’d hoped, that prompted him to stand, so she briskly pulled down the spread and top sheet before she turned to him.

Even in his sock feet, Hoyt towered over her, and he’d never seemed bigger or more blatantly masculine than in those hushed seconds next to his big bed. And sexy. The man oozed it.

“Well, I…need to get home. I’ll see you Tuesday, as usual, unless you need me for something before then.” She glanced up into his face then away. “Take it easy, and mind the doctor. I’ll call Miss Ed tomorrow to see how you’re coming along.”

“You won’t stop by tomorrow to check on me yourself?”

Eadie was as threatened by the question as she was pleased. “What about…after supper?”

“Why so late? Is tomorrow a big workday for you?”

“Yes.” It truly was, and now she was a little relieved it would be. She needed some perspective, and hard outdoor work was good for that.

“You’ve still got folks workin’ for you?”

Eadie shrugged, uneasy with the question. “I’ve been trading off chores. I’ve got work at Junie’s in the morning to pay back help, then work of my own when I’m done there.”

“You hurtin’ for money?”

Trust Hoyt to just bluntly ask, though it was a shock that he had. Eadie was starting to hurt for money more than she was comfortable with, though no one but her needed to know.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but I just have to cut extra costs. I’m still making up for inheritance taxes. Nothing earth-shattering.”

No, not earth-shattering, but more like a cliffhanger. Eadie hated to lie, but she was ashamed she hadn’t been doing better the past few months. Small ranchers had a hard time, and she was grateful she only had herself to support. Nevertheless, it wasn’t something she wanted Hoyt to know about.

“If you need something…well, you know I’m good for it.”

Apparently Hoyt’s antennae were up, because he didn’t let it drop. She needed to draw a polite line to ward him off, because she considered the subject of her money troubles highly inappropriate.

“That’s kind of you, thanks. And generous. But I can stand on my own.”

“I mean it, Eadie.”

A small smile burst up from the combined dismay and tenderness that was all but breaking her heart. “I know.”

She dared to touch his arm. “Thanks.” Eadie barely resisted the urge to let the touch linger. “Do I need to lock up on my way out?”

“I never lock up. The dogs take care of varmints. It’s more entertaining than locking the doors.”

Eadie gave a laugh. Hoyt’s dogs were the laziest hounds in that part of Texas. They loved kids and women, but they lived for strangers. Their god-awful baying was more than enough to alert the ranch, whatever time of the day or night.

They barely paid attention to her comings and goings, so if she saw much of them at all, it was when she took a moment to pet them on the back patio on her way in to work, or when Hoyt had them in the den. And that was rare because Miss Ed didn’t like dogs in the house.

“All right then,” she said. “Good night.”

“I’ll walk you out.”

Eadie shook her head. “You will not walk me out. I’ve been walking out of this house alone for years now, so I think I can remember the way. Get your clothes off and go to bed.”

Hoyt gave her a narrow look. “You’re bossier than I ever thought.”

Eadie’s brows went up. “You need bossing more than I ever thought. Good night now.”

Eadie didn’t give him another chance to delay her. Standing by Hoyt’s big bed in the soft lamplight had put enough pictures in her brain that she’d have to blot out, along with the ones of him shirtless in the doctor’s office.

She made her escape, but just outside the front door she nearly tripped over Mike and Mose, who were sprawled like roadkill just outside the front door. Eadie took a moment to bend down to give them a pat.

“So you two do set up a sentry after dark.”

Mose rolled over for a belly rub and Mike did the same.

“Some watchdogs you are,” she scoffed with a laugh as she briefly accommodated their shameless appeal. When she had, she straightened. “Back on duty, boys.”

Both dogs whined as she went to her pickup and got in, but they subsided quickly enough and went back to their usual watchdog postures. Which was to lie flat on their sides like lumpy, long-eared rugs.

Eadie did take a minute at lunch that next day to call Donovan Ranch to check on Hoyt. Miss Ed filled her in, because Hoyt had company. Eadie tried not to jump to the conclusion that his visitor was a woman, but since Miss Ed didn’t say who the company was, she’d gotten the impression that one of Hoyt’s women had dropped by. Could it be the beautiful Celeste?

News traveled fast in and around Coulter City, and the doc had seemed amused that Eadie had been with Hoyt so he might have mentioned it to his wife. Someone was sure to have noticed that Eadie was driving Hoyt around in his new pickup. Since Hoyt never let a woman drive, that would have been noticed faster than anything else.

Hoyt had also gone into the pharmacy by himself, bold as you please, wearing his ripped and bloody shirt with the white bandage peeking through the gap in the cloth, so no doubt everyone knew about that by now, too.